Unearthen Gives Us a Ring

Gia Bahm, the designer responsible for Unearthen’s sweetly tough jewelry, knew exactly what she wanted from her Of a Kind edition: a ring simple enough to be worn every day and special enough to make a statement. To satisfy the tall order, Gia employed a lost-wax casting process and handset each stone herself. “Computers and technology are great,” Gia says. “But I like that this is tangible. It means each ring turns out a little different. You can see someone’s fingerprints all over it.” Below, Gia breaks the whole thing down.

“First, I’ll select the wax that I want to work with and carve it into the shape that I’m looking for for the ring with a wax pen. I use this very specific X-Acto knife. I’m pretty idiosyncratic about the tools that I like.”

“Next, a mold is made out of the wax model, so that we can cast as many editions from it as we need to.”

“After we cast an individual piece from the mold, we use a rock tumbler to polish it. In essence, it just cleans the piece up, gives it a nice finish, and softens any rough or pointed edges.”

“At this point, we match a crystal to each of the finished ring settings. For us, it’s not like we toss the whole batch into an assembly line and shove any stone into any frame. The fit has to be as seamless as possible, and each prong as to be adjusted accordingly. Nature made this amazing, unique thing, and I want to do it justice”

“We give it one last final polish, and that’s that. We send it off to you.”